X-TREME KOMBAT & BUDO Fighting Championship

What a fantastic evening of Mixed Martial Arts at X-TREME KOMBAT and BUDO's show at Hoops Basketball Centre in Barrow on Saturday.

Fighters from as far afield as Norway took to the cage for an evening of boxing, XK1 and MMA action with local lads performing well.

Mark Heasley of Flex MMA Millom Fight Club opened the evening with a 72Kg Boxing bout against Scott Eaglestone and after 3 tough rounds he was awarded the points win.

Next into the cage was local lad Scott Phizacklea for an XK1 62kg fight and he came out all guns blazing, knocking his opponent to the canvas three times before the fight was stopped in the first round. Another great fight for local talent!

Next was a 90Kg boxing bout between Furness Fight Academy’s Gary Chambers and Ryan Palmer. Chambers came out immediately throwing some big left’s and once again the fight was stopped in the first round with another local victory.

85Kg XK1 was next with Jamie Fitzpatrick representing Barrow MMA and his opponent was Wes O’Neil. Jamie came out looking strong and started throwing punishing leg kicks which clearly hurt his opponent, it wasn’t too long into the first round when it was all over and Jamie had his hand held aloft.

Another Heasley from Flex MMA Millom Fight Club was next into the cage, this time it was Craig and he was up against Kyle McNicholas for their boxing 80Kg bout. He looked like he meant business in his walk out to the cage and he set off like dynamite! McNicholas was on the canvas at the end of the 1st round but got up and fought on until the fight was stopped in Round 3. Another Heasley win.

XK1 72KG saw Barrow MMA’s Ryan Maxwell enter the cage against Elliot Ferguson from New Blood Martial Arts of Carlisle. These two fought courageously over 3 rounds giving their all in every round but the decision went to Ferguson who was delighted.

After the interval it was the turn of another Team Spartan Barrow MMA fighter Jackson Salehi and he was up against Shane Finn in an 80Kg boxing bout. Both fighters looked determined but at the end of the first round Finn was on the canvas and we had another local victory.

A couple more MMA fights entertained the crowds before it was the turn of local lad Ash McCracken to step up into the cage. He was fighting Norway’s Aleksander Virtanen who looked like a serious threat during their earlier face off. We weren’t disappointed as this turned out to be an absolute battle between the two XK1 fighters and in my opinion this was the fight of the night. After 3 gruelling rounds the judges had a difficult decision to make and it went in favour of our local fighter McCracken who won by split decision.

There was one final fight with local representation before the two main events of the evening and this was an 85Kg XK1 bout between Team Spartan’s Danny Fereday and another Norwegian fighter Fredrik Ortiz. This was another battle between two warriors with neither wanting to concede anything, trading repeated blows and putting everything into them. A three round epic that eventually went Oritz’s way as exhaustion got the better of Fereday.

The Co - Main Event was for the Amateur Light Welterweight Championship and Patrick Lehane who had flown in from Cork in Ireland fought well to take the title from Bart Krol. The Main Event was for the Amateur Welterweight Championship and this was an epic battle with Jordan Holmes eventually winning from a completely spent Yanick Mezepo who had nothing left in the tank.

Pictures from all the evenings fights will be in the gallery later this week.